It is about the journey of the soul

Menu

Category Archives: connections

spirituality
The story of Joseph is a story of the journey of the soul. It seems that this is a soul that has gained wisdom through other lifetimes, and is able to maintain its connection with God throughout its trials on earth. Therefore, it is safe to say that this is the story of an old soul and its journey through the senses and desires of the physical body and the earth plane. In the Bible story of Joseph we see the story of the soul. Joseph has a dream:

5. And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brethren: and they hated him yet the more. 6. And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed: 7. for, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves came round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf. 8. And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? Or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words. 9. And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed yet a dream: and, behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars made obeisance to me. 10. And he told it to his father, and to his brethren; and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth? And his brethren envied him; but his father kept the saying in mind.

Here, we see Joseph, as a soul, envisioning the time when he will become the master over his sense represented by the sheaths of corn, and finally over his fate, as described by the Sun, Mon and eleven Stars. Jacob – here representing the higher self, the connection with God, hears the goal of the soul and keeps note of it, knowing that it is seeking to return – to rise above the body. Most likely, this story represents a soul which has had many lives already and facing the return home.

The brothers, here representing the senses and the desire nature of the body betray Joseph take his coat and throw him into a pit in the wilderness, the pit representing the body where at first , the soul cannot see its way to God through the Maya. The fact that there is no water probably tells us that there is no way for wisdom to flow to the soul at this point:

22. And Reuben said unto them, Shed no blood; cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, but lay no hand upon him: that he might deliver him out of their hand, to restore him to his father. 23. And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stripped Joseph of his coat, the coat of many colors that was on him; 24. and they took him, and cast him into the pit: and the pit was empty, there was no water in it.

Later, the brothers sold Joseph to a passing caravan – he is sold into slavery. So here we see Joseph given by the senses over to one of the desires of the body – greed.

What profit is it if we slay our brother and conceal his blood? 27. Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother, our flesh. And his brethren hearkened unto him. And there passed by Midianites, merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver.

Yet, despite the desire of the senses to break Joseph, God is within him, he is aware of his goal – he is a light within, one that glows without. And because of the light that is steadily growing, the soul continues to maintain his direction. Then, as happens to all souls – Joseph is tempted by the wife of his master. As the soul is always tempted by the desires of the body. Although Joseph does not fall to the temptation – he is then tested further by being punished anyway. He is thrown into jail. Here we see that this soul, cannot be tempted by glitter, nor can he be tempted by adversity. Because of his unwillingness to succumb to the tests of the physical – the greatest of desires and temptations do not stand in his way.

Ultimately, Joseph interprets a dream for Pharaoh. He tells Pharaoh that his dreams state that there will be seven years of plenty and seven years of famine. Because of this interpretation of the dreams, Pharaoh makes Joseph the final authority in all that happens in the kingdom. Here, Joseph is expressing the wisdom of an advanced soul. He expresses the fact that there are cycles of abundance and cycles of loss in life on earth. If one is not greedy during cycles of abundance one will have enough during cycles of loss. This is very much a statement of the middle way. Pharaoh, representing the higher self, sees that the soul cannot again be affected by what happens in the environment. The soul is prepared for the end of the journey, with its connection to God intact. It has been declared that the senses and the destiny will be under the rule of the soul, and the battle for the soul – has been won by the higher self.

When his brothers come to him in need of food for their families and for their father, he was generous to them. Here the soul ruled person, being ruled by the principal of love is generous and benevolent to all, regardless of what others might have done to him. The soul, is advanced enough to understand that nothing happens that is not determined by God, and so all is good.Genesis 50:15-21
15. And when Joseph’s brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, It may be that Joseph will hate us, and will fully requite us all the evil which we did unto him. 16. And they sent a message unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying, 17. So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the transgression of thy brethren, and their sin, for that they did unto thee evil. And now, we pray thee, forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him. 18. And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we are thy servants. 19. And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God? 20. And as for you, ye meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.

The soul goes from the pit, to slavery, to temptation, to adversity, to clear perception, and finally to mastery and home. This is only one of the many stories in the bible, which give us such light as to the meaning of life from the perspective of the soul’s journey. When we are ready to understand the scriptures, all scriptures as guides to life at all stages, we will truly see how they are all great master teachers. We see this repeated again when Jesus having received the Christ enters into the wilderness (the descent of the soul into flesh) and faces the temptations of Satan. This is the path of all souls that come into incarnation. It is the facing of the tests, the tests of temptation, and the tests of adversity, to ultimately overcome them all and free the true self that lies within.

Each of us is God and all of us are God, in the sense that we are aspects of Him spread out over all of time and space. When we love ourselves we love God. It is not looking up saying “God I love you, you are perfect.” It is looking in the mirror and saying “God I love you, you are perfect.”

We are special; we are all on a mission to spread love and light. If we can learn to love ourselves completely, each part of our being, then by doing that from within we will automatically love each other. It is by loving and accepting all of our different qualities that we will love and accept all of those souls who represent those qualities around us.

That love will infect the energy of the entire planet and the Universe. This is each person’s individual mission. Understand that love and hate are like air born viruses. They travel through the energy field and infect others. As a virus begins first within an organism, so love and hate each begin first within the individual. I cannot spread something I do not have. I must love or hate myself to spread it into the energy environment.

Hate is simply fear. Love is acceptance as oneness. Love is being whole. We do come from one source. We are all different aspects of All that is, and we each contain every aspect of All that is. As we meet others we are meeting ourselves, like the same piece of the cardboard, just cut into a different shape. It is truly, as above, so below, as within without. If I can only love one person, I still am only accepting those aspects of myself that are represented by that one person. If I cannot love a certain person, and worse, if I hate that person, it is the aspect of myself that is represented by that person that I am not accepting.

We speak of good versus evil, of us versus them – Satan versus God – these are all imaginary divisions. They are not real. If you look to Satan as he appears in the old testament, he is not the enemy of God. If he is the enemy of anyone he is the enemy of man. The impression is that he just thinks that God gives man too much credit. He doesn’t believe that man is capable of loving God as the angels do. So God gives Satan carte blanche as to how he tests mans love of God with one exception – he can’t kill him. Knowing that Satan, being an archangel, is no dummy – he would use the division and distraction to distance man from God and prove his point, that man doesn’t have what it takes to love God. Religion is the first and the best tool to divide and conquer humanity. It makes sense; people are so busy defending their particular religion from other people who are defending their own religion, that God – becomes an afterthought. The focus becomes the bathwater and not God, the baby in it. If we were to overcome all of our other boundaries – race, nationality, economic status, religion will still remain Satan’s trump card. We commit more actions that distance us from our own loving hearts and God, in the name of religion, than even our greed commands.

Remember that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. We are each links. If we are not individually in love with the totality of our beings, we cannot benefit the whole. I can teach you to understand a concept, even the concept of self-love, but I cannot give it to you or to the energy of the universe until I have it. If we can love ourselves unconditionally – we will see no one as unworthy of our love and embrace the Oneness that we all share.

We are God, in the sense that we are aspects of Him spread out over all of time and space. When we love ourselves we love God. It is not looking up saying “God I love you, you are perfect.” It is looking in the mirror and saying “God I love you, you are perfect.” It is looking at all beings and saying, “God I love you, you are perfect.” When we understand that we need not look to what we cannot see to love God, because we each are a cell in the body of God. We are not born from God; we are each and all forever a part of God.

The “veil,” the “Maya” is what keeps us looking at a liver cell as opposed to a pancreatic cell as opposed to a skin cell when we are all simply and divinely cells of one beautiful body, and our individual work is what keeps the body alive.

We are a part of All that is. This is why there is no death. Even our physical bodies do return to the physical substance from which they came; that is not even dying, it is transforming into something greater than before. When our physical vehicle is no longer of use, we are re-incorporated into spirit. Until we choose to utilize a physical vehicle again.

If we go back to the theory of cells, we can understand that we have an ego, which in its highest sense, is the attachment to our individuality and the experiences we have had throughout our history of incarnation. The Aquarian Age is a time where we do not blend our individuality into the brotherhood of man. We add our individuality to aid the betterment of mankind. It is also about taking that individuality and bringing it into the perfect working of the whole. Just as a liver cell cannot forget it is a liver cell and start functioning as a pancreatic cell. Ideally it should realize that it is a liver cell of the same material and a part of the same whole as the pancreatic cell and without both there would be no body.

Individuality does not mean that we are floating unattached. Individuality means that we have our self, our gift, and our unique identity to contribute to the whole of which we are a part. We are a drop as well as the Ocean. We need each other because we are each other in the greater sense. We need God because we are God.

To say that we are children of God is beautiful and it conjures up a beautiful loving image. Yet it implies that we are separate from God so when we are then told to look within for God, we become confused trying to find something separate but within. My child comes from me, she loves me and I love her, however we are separate physical beings in life and that separateness is what impels her to perfect the gifts that are contributed by her being and knowing her whole self.

My cells and my organs, on the other hand, are a part of me; they bear the same connection to me as we bear to God. I may look at every part of me and say this me in this lifetime. The power and strength of each part of me is at my disposal. So we must incorporate the premise that we are not children of God but parts of the body of God. We do not have to look within to find God, we are God within and without. Not only are we parts of God, but so is everything that exists as far as we can see and as far as there is.

If we can understand this concept and break free of the belief that we are merely creations of God but not God, then we can understand that everything else is connected to and a part of each of us.

God created man in His own image. Perhaps what that is saying is the God created man from His own image, and a soul that is, His own image. Understanding that all that exists is God, as each cell within our bodies are connected to the other and dependent upon the other, and the body upon the whole of all if its cells, so too are we connected to every living organism and in some way, aware of it or not, we are dependent upon each. God is economical. There are no left-over or dispensable parts. Each species, each organism has a purpose, and if we remove one from existence, we will eventually feel the repercussions of its absence.

We cannot pollute the atmosphere without somehow polluting ourselves. We cannot weaken the immune system of the earth without having problems with our own immune systems and the immune systems of every living organism that exists on the planet. Not in just affecting from without, but mirroring the effect within our own organism. We must remember that as above, as below as within as without.
We cannot consider ourselves separate from God nor can we consider ourselves separate from another individual, even if that individual lives thousands of miles away worships in a different church, speaks a different language and has a different color skin. We are all connected by the atmosphere that we all share. We live under the same sky and breathe the same air. We are each connected by air. Everything on earth is made of atoms. How then can we not be connected?

To be a part of something larger than ourselves does not make us less in reality it makes us more. When we look at the night sky and see all of the stars and all of the universes, this should not make us feel small and insignificant; it should make us feel great and limitless. Only the belief that one is great can give one the courage and motivation to do great things.

I remember walking down the street in my fur coat a few years back and having someone ask me if I knew how many minks died for my fur. I stopped wearing fur. I stopped because I did not need it, it was a luxury, it was a sign that I had made it – it was ego food. I understood the question. Now, with the world so small, and the suffering so great – so unavoidable – I wonder if we should not feel the same sense of responsibility that we feel for helpless animals, for helpless humans.

There was a time when your choices were beautiful sparkling diamonds or dull glass. It made some sense, if even in a superficial way, to want a diamond. But today, there are faux diamonds that cost a fraction of the cost and sparkle with equal brilliance – so one has to ask oneself why buy the diamond? What is it’s value in our world today? What if you have a ten thousand dollar diamond, trade it in for a one thousand dollar cubic zirconium and give the nine thousand dollars that you have left to buy mosquito nets for children in Africa? Then your diamond would have value., it would show much more than what you can afford to have, it would show what you are willing to give. Wouldn’t it be cool, rather than wearing a five thousand dollar blouse that says you are filthy rich, wearing a five-dollar tee shirt that says, “The money I planned to spend on a blouse is feeding a village in India”. How cool would you be?

Bling says to the world, “I am wearing this because I can afford it and I have nothing better to do with it than waste it on show”. Yes, it just does. No one can watch the homeless and displaced, the diseased and dying in this country and around the world and then spend thousands of dollars on things, which announce, “It’s about me”. Not today. Today we don’t need to spend thousands, millions of dollars on precious gems in order to sparkle. We can spend a fraction of that on semi-precious gems, give the rest to those in desperate need and not only sparkle from the gems, but glow from the heart. I believe that today it would be much more satisfying to wear something that doesn’t say “I have made it because I can afford to drip in diamonds” but something that says, “I have made it because I can afford to feed a village”. The oohs and ahhs are much greater today and much more long lasting when you show what you give rather than what you wear.

If our success in a profession is measured by the amount of money that we are paid, that is ok, if we understand that our true worth is measured by what we give. The point is that there is no need for bling today, it doesn’t look better than faux bling, but trading that bling in for heart does look better. We cannot outlaw bling anymore than we can outlaw fur, but it would be nice to ask someone dripping in bling, “How many children’s bellies could be filled by those earrings?” “How many villages could be educated against AIDS with that ring?” And perhaps, while we are at it, we should ask ourselves how much does it cost to make a house a home, and how many children can we give a home to for the price of a ten million dollar house?

I am not advocating ego denial. I am advocating a sense of satisfaction that not only feeds the ego but also feeds the soul. Trust me, it feels better to give to give to children in Somalia than it does to give to salespeople in Harry Winston, Proving to a child that faith has reason, God is alive and that there are angels is so much more gratifying than the stares you get from sparkling down the street in jewels. And who could honestly say that a tour of a mansion you built could hold a candle to a tour of the hospital you built in a village that has not even seen a doctor. Save a mink, don’t buy fur, Save a child, don’t buy bling.

Suppose you and I have had an argument. If you have beaten me instead of my beating you, then are you necessarily right and am I necessarily wrong? If I have beaten you instead of your beating me, then am I necessarily right and are you necessarily wrong? Is one of us right and the other wrong? Are both of us right or are both of us wrong? If you and I don’t know the answer, then other people are bound to be even more in the dark. Whom shall we get to decide what is right? Shall we get someone who agrees with you to decide? But if he already agrees with you, how can he decide fairly? Shall we get someone who agrees with me? But if he already agrees with me, how can he decide? Shall we get someone who disagrees with both of us?… But waiting for one shifting voice [to decide for] another is the same as waiting for none of them. Harmonize them all with the Heavenly Equality, leave them to their endless changes, and so live out your years. What do I mean by harmonizing them with the Heavenly Equality? Right is not right; so is not so. If right were really right, it would differ so clearly from not right that there would be no need for argument. If so were really so, it would differ so clearly from not so that there would be no need for argument. Forget the years; forget distinctions. Leap into the boundless and make it your home!

Taoism. Chuang Tzu 2

Around the age of nine, I found my need to find the “right” path to God overwhelming most other things in my life. So while attending a Yiddish school on Saturdays, I reserved Sundays to attend as many different churches and Sunday schools that I could get to and also gain entrance. It seems now to have been a young age for such a quest, but at the time, the world in which I lived seemed so chaotic and unjust, that finding the way to God felt to me to be the only journey that could in anyway offer me peace. My Jewish upbringing taught me to question and so, of all the churches that I attended, my shortest stay was in the Catholic Church where, because of my insistent questioning, I was asked to leave and not return. I think that my Jewish experience, on a whole was the most enriching in my life, yet, at the same time, the words that I learned were spoken by the Christ resonated profoundly in my heart. As I went from church to church, somehow I found it difficult to feel that I had found the home that I was seeking.

Yet, even when I ran out of churches to attend, Jesus stayed with me insisting that I find a way to accept Him into my life. Part of my problem was I felt that to embrace Jesus was to betray my Jewish heritage, which I so deeply valued. The other problem that I had was that it seemed a contradiction to say in one statement that we were all children of God and then in another that Jesus was the only begotten Son of God. I spent many hours in silence asking God to help me find a way to make peace with this contradiction. Other times I just wished that he would go away and leave me alone. I debated the concept of Christ for hours on end with my Christian friends but never mention it to my Jewish ones. Inside I had no peace. My intense questioning and debate caused one Catholic Priest to actually come to my door and ask me to stay away from the Catholic friends that I had who were members of his church. It was not my intention to cause them to question their faith, only to seek a way for them to convince me.

Then there finally came a time when my life was so consuming that I did find a way to push the entire question away from my conscious attention. I did this for some years, although during the whole time I heard myself time and time again quoting something that Jesus had said. And then one day, I simply felt the Christ consciousness within my soul, without explanation, without intellectual understanding, and contrary to popular belief, without invitation. From that moment on, not only did I have a new vision and understanding of the Christ, but of God and the Universe. My level of comprehension was lifted above the world of form and shape to a world of essence and consciousness. I began writing things that I thought were my own words to only later find out that they were in fact his. What was even more profound was that these words of his, were spoken by Krishna, and the Buddha before him – I was expanding. I started to rise above the judgments and classifications that were once in my mind to a place of wholeness and acceptance which had no real words to explain. And this was only the first step on my journey.

Each scripture is written by the same hand. Each one is speaking in a different symbolic language. Each different scripture resonates for the souls who vibrate to that language. We each vibrate to different symbols, and God, in all His Wisdom, comes in the shape and speaks in the symbols understood by all. Still, as I read through the scriptures and the mythology of various peoples, the characters may seem different but they are basically the same. The exact description of their experiences may differ, but the underlying message is the same.

So, when someone begins to speak in the language of their religion, and I feel the urge to correct them and explain the “right” way – I push myself past that impulse and find that regardless of what the differences are in our spiritual convictions, we can always meet in the common area, called Love. It is my belief that God would not have created us with such diversity if it was His intention that we look, think, live, or believe in exactly the same way. I also don’t believe that He meant for us to be repelled by our differences or to see them as conflicting differences of better or worse, but simply enhancing differences, each offering a new shade of beauty – a different level of experience. Just as we have seven major charkas, each one vibrating to a different color, between each of the seven are many smaller ones in varying shades of the colors that they lie between. Throughout our many lives, each one of the charkas is dominant in our experience of ourselves and of our lives, until we finally reach the crown chakra.

Just like different sizes of shoes, each size fits different feet, but no one fits “better” feet than the other. They are just different. Each is a joyous expression of God. And He experiences Himself through us and through our experiences. The more varied we are the more varied His joy.

Like everyone in the world today, I have been seeking an answer to why we have arrived at this difficult place in history. The most simplistic reason is that we really are not able to share this planet – we have not learned the true meaning of being a neighbor, and so we have not learned the meaning of brotherhood, because if we had, than sharing would come naturally. If we knew the meaning of brotherhood, no one would WANT to have more than anyone else – not more things, or more land, or more food, friends more status or a more sacred knowledge of God. We would want, to have enough, and to be sure that our brothers had enough. It was Cain who questioned being his brother’s keeper and we all know how that worked out for him. Jesus was not the first to mention the idea of brotherhood, and He taught it 2000 years ago. The Initiates of the Eleusinian mysteries between 1500 and 1425 BCE were called adelphoi, which means brothers, a Philadelphian was someone who practiced “Brotherly Love”, which is where the name of the city comes from. The So why is it that we have since traveled to the moon, but not journeyed one step closer to true brotherly love. Certainly, we know how to say it better now than before and we create stories and books showing the joys of brotherhood, but the concept is as much science fiction as the movies showing the year 2520 with desolate nuked out cities run by mutant robots chasing the five humans left who haven’t killed each other – or is the latter more realistic?

“Do unto others as you would have other do unto you”, why is it that the simple things are the most difficult to grasp? We can communicate over distances thousands of miles in a matter of seconds, but we can’t “Do unto others as we would have other do unto us”. I know in my heart that God doesn’t make mistakes, so the fact that it is easier to wrap our legs around our necks and act like a pretzel than it is to love our brothers like ourselves must be a sign along the path. There must be a real message there for us. Have our brains grown at the expense of our hearts? Or did we have to master the easy stuff first, like colonizing Mars before we could be ready to tackle the difficult tasks, like learning to share a planet that we have lived on together for tens of thousands of years.

I believe that thirty percent of the people in the capitalist countries hope that there is a God, and thirty percent fear that there might be a God, and another thirty percent hope that there is a God but that either He is too busy to look at what they are doing, or that He has left much more room to maneuver in His Commandments than meets the eye. This leaves ten percent who truly believe in their hearts that there is a God. However even of that ten percent who believe that, there is a God, five percent believe that in the end we will find that He did not give us Ten Commandments but the Ten Suggestions.

If everything in the Bible was meant to be taken literally, few of us alive today would make it through the 613 commandments without passing directly to the down elevator. It is difficult to believe that after thousands of years of floods, plagues and pestilence, God finally grew so frustrated with man that He decided that the only way to secure mankind’s entrance into Heaven was to beget a son, send him to live a life of the highest form of unconditional love for all, and then have him publically tortured and killed. I believe with all of my heart that God Almighty, All knowing, All seeing, creator of Heaven and earth could find another way. And I believe that the other Way is through the experience of our lives on earth. We have been given Teachers, Jesus being one of them, but not the first, nor the last to show us the Way. In Isaiah 13:15-16 the way to Heaven is stated clearly:

15He that walketh righteously,

and speaketh uprightly;

he that despiseth the gain of oppressions,

that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes,

that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood,

and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil;

16He shall dwell on high: his place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks: bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure.

Then later in Isaiah: 56:1, the 613 commandments are summed up further this way:

1Thus said Jehovah:

`Keep ye judgment,

and do righteousness,

For near [is] My salvation to come,

And My righteousness to be revealed.

The Way is again made clear by Jesus in Matthew:

16 And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?

17 And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.

20 The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?

21 Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

22 But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.

23 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.

24 And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

25 When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved?

26 But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.

This is really one of the foundations for my belief in reincarnation. It seems I have believed in it as early as I could imagine anything, but it really began to make sense when it dawned on me that God is always looking and that fact doesn’t seem to have any impact on most people. I mean – we can justify our actions to ourselves, and we can allow ourselves an ‘E” for effort, but it seems to me that in actuality God does not really ask much of us considering what we receive. And I don’t think that He is really all that vague on His Commandments, but being a Loving God, I do believe that what He does give us is time, and He gives that to of us in the form of reincarnation. After all, God knows that we can’t make the leap from colonizing Mars ALL the way to “Loving our neighbors” in one lifetime. It takes many lifetimes, with frequent rest periods in between to stretch that far from human to humane. Each incarnating class doesn’t have a really high number of graduates at a time, but we all do, in our own time, make that final leap off of the wheel of incarnation.

One thing that is very clear, from Osiris, to Horus, Dionysius to Jesus, and from the Buddha, to Krishna is that the first and most difficult step is non-attachment to the material. God tells us not to make idols out of gold and silver, but we forget that we are also told not to make gold and silver into idols. We must begin that journey of separation from our very closest traveling companion, the ego. We have a lot of history with our egos and they have served us well. What makes it even more difficult is that at no other time in history has the climate been so perfect for an ego. All the toys – all the battles – and all those big, big, guns. It was a great deal easier to make a clean brake a few centuries ago when we were too busy needing each other to give the ego that much room to move and groove. Now, it seems so hard to hurt the egos we love, the egos, which aid in serving us the world on a silver platter.

The spark of God lives within all of us. The journey towards that spark is one that every living being on the planet shares, and, with or without knowing it, we need each other to complete that journey. Life, what is really life, is God. That life which is within each of us also connects us one to the other. It guides all of us, loves all of us and creates the one common thread that unites each living being to each other and to the Source of Life itself. For just as we each have a body with many parts, but just one soul, all of creation is also one Body with just One Soul, and that soul is God.

35And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee. Leviticus 25:35 (King James Version)

7If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in thy land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother: 8But thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he wanteth. 9Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought; and he cry unto the LORD against thee, and it be sin unto thee. 10Thou shalt surely give him, and thine heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him: because that for this thing the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all thy works, and in all that thou puttest thine hand unto.

11For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land Deuteronomy 15:7 (King James Version)

Psalm 15

A psalm of David.

1 LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary?
Who may live on your holy mountain?

2 Those whose walk is blameless,
who do what is righteous,
who speak the truth from their hearts;

3 who have no slander on their tongues,
who do their neighbors no wrong,
who cast no slur on others;

4 who despise those whose ways are vile
but honor whoever fears the LORD;
who keep their oaths even when it hurts;

5 who lend money to the poor without interest
and do not accept bribes against the innocent.
Whoever does these things
will never be shaken.

One of the phrases that we hear and say a great deal in metaphysical circles in “This is all an illusion”. Although it sounds good, it is not something that we are able to really incorporate into our consciousness because it is so fundamentally opposed to our experience. And though we may be temporarily soothed by the idea of it, the feeling vanishes the moment we bump into a part of that illusion, like a wall, and get a concussion on another part of the illusion – our heads. For most of us the idea that our experience is “all an illusion” is filed away somewhere with God, another idea that, for most of us, is firmly implanted in our belief system but very much disconnected from the reality of our daily lives.

If this is an illusion, why does it hurt so much or feel so real? Why can’t we just affirm it away? In a movie, which is for all intents and purposes an illusion, when one of the characters – another illusion is shot by a bullet – another illusion, the character dies – another illusion. There are two layers here. There is the layer of the actors or the soul who is assuming the role of the character – the illusion who dies. Within the movie, nothing is an illusion. When the actor – the soul – steps out of the movie, or the life in our case, it was all an illusion. A good actor will feel the pain of the character; he will feel the joy of the character which is what makes his performance believable. A good actor is very sensitive, just as a soul is. When the actor leaves the role, he has to re-enter his own life – his own role in the greater movie that is life. This reorientation often takes time. When a soul leaves a life, that soul too has to re-enter its essence, after absorbing all of the experiences of the life that it has just left. A character in a movie or in a play follows a plot, acts or reacts in a way written by someone else. So, in order to react naturally the actor must inhabit the part. We souls inhabit our personalities and so we are able to act and react according to the character that we come to play.

An actor becomes the character, so convincingly. that we are able to anticipate what he will do or say next because we believe him. We may know that the actor is acting and that the words have been written by someone else, the cues given by someone else, yet we feel and experience what the characters are going through. Although the choices that each character is making have been predetermined by the writer, we know that those are the choices that this character would make. Even when the character surprises us, if the actor did his job and writer did his, we can review the movie and see how this unexpected action could have been predicted. This is free will. These characters are predictable because we understand how they are motivated. Yet, does our ability to predict their choices deny the freedom of their choices? No, they are free to choose. What is predetermined is the point from which they view the world at the time that God or the Universe places the choice on their path. How often do we say, “I did that based on what I knew then”, or “If I only knew then what I know now”, or, “The person I am today would never have done that”.

Imagine being in a room, facing a wall and from your position, you can see the wall in front of you and from your peripheral vision you can make out the walls on each side, right and left of your position. But from where you stand, there is no door. Now, the position that you are in places you on a wheel, like a clock gear, that will slowly turn you around. However, right now you only see walls. You are facing twelve o’clock. There is a door at the six o’clock position, but you won’t see it for six hours. Now a voice enters the room and says, “You are free to go”. Is it an illusion that you are free to go? No, there is a door. But from where you stand, there is none. In a story, the character has free will and, we can anticipate that characters actions. We have free will, and our choices are predetermined. They are predetermined because our visibility of available options is really limited to one, at the time that the Universe presents the choice. There may be ten puzzle pieces lined up before us to choose from, yet, the experiences, the beliefs, the impressions of the world that we have accumulated up to that moment sees only one perfect fit. Because there is only one, it is the one that our soul has chosen to best experience the lessons we need to learn.
We have to remember that we come here to learn and to grow. In order to do this, we have to set up a lesson plan.

Our lessons do not only come from where the choice leads us on our path, but also from which choice we make, and how we arrived at that choice. We are here to expand our view, and to learn to see from our hearts. Most actors take roles for a purpose. Many take roles which allow them to stretch, to grow. Free will is not an illusion, but in a way, the choices we make are. They are the lessons; they are the set-up for our growth. They create the plot within which the actor acts. As we learn from each choice, our view expands; our abilities grow until we are in tune with our hearts. When we are in tune with our hearts – we are in tune with our souls. When the soul has mastered the personality, its view is no longer limited. It then sees through the eyes of the creator of the path. The dreamer has mastered the dream, so it is no longer a dream; the actor now writes his part, so he is no longer limited by the existing plot. Illusion vanished and all that is left is one Will in tune with All-That-Is. To enlighten is to light the path so one may see the way. It really has never been a question of whether or not we have free will, the question is, how much we really see of what our free will is acting upon. This is where growth lies.

There is no mountain that we cannot climb so long as we can fix our eyes on the peakTo truly believe something is to have innate knowledge. That innate knowledge is faith. Faith is connected with inner sight, the sight that sees the truth that our eyes do not see. We are only capable of believing that which is possible. We all believe in fate. Even those people, who feel that they are totally in charge of their lives, believe that at some point that something happened in their lives that had the feeling of Divine Intervention. There was at least some moment in which fate played a part.

Whether we believe that fate is the path defined by God, by the Universe or simply the path we ourselves determined prior to coming here; fate still has a hand in determining the path that we walk.We each contain knowledge of our path. The Maya, or the veil of illusion, fools us into believing that we are driven by our wants, our desires, or our wishes, when in fact what moves us ahead are our possibilities. Each of us longs to fulfill our own destiny. It is through our needs, our wishes, desires and our choices that we are guided towards that destiny. When we are able to visualize something or when we are fueled with the passion for something to the point that such a passion consumes us, this is not a desire. It is in fact a, “Knowing”. It is a piercing of the veil of illusion to that which actually will be.

We cannot sustain a burning desire for anything that we cannot actually achieve. If in fact we are capable of truly visualizing a goal, it is not simply a goal; it is the actual vision of our destiny. The fact that it is real and not just imaginary is the only reason that we are actually capable of visualizing it.It is our beliefs that work to manifest our reality. We cannot truly hold on to a belief that is impossible to realize. We may hold a vision for a short period of time but we cannot maintain it unless it is real. Therefore if we can really believe something to be true, if we can really believe that we can attain a certain goal, this is only because we will attain it, or at least it is within our capabilities to attain it.

Let’s say that we all come into this incarnation with what I call a, “Bag of ‘Haves”’. These are the things that are within us to do, to accomplish, or to obtain. These things are a part of our destiny. The knowledge of these things is expressed through our dreams, wishes and desires. We would take no notice of or at least we would not be able to retain any desire for these same objects, positions, or relationships if they were not within our ability to have.

Many times we are obsessed with getting to one point and once there we feel as though it isn’t where we want to be at all. This wasn’t a mistake; it was a step that we had to reach on the road to our ultimate destiny. The lessons come in each step of the process and sometimes the lessons are meant to make us feel lost, or out of step because within that experience is the key to the next door, or the clue to our next step.

Some people spend their entire lives feeling lost and out of place. Even that would mean that within those feelings are the lessons to be learned in this lifetime. What is important to remember is that we are always going to have what we came here to have. We always have what we really need; it may be just a matter of time and experience until we receive it.

There was a time when in order to get a donkey to move they would attach a carrot to a stick and put that stick on the donkey’s head. The donkey would keep going in order to reach the carrot. Of course he never reached it because it was always in front of him. Yet, he always had it because it was attached to his head. He would go around chasing the carrot because he could see it, but actually the reason that he could visualize the carrot is because he really had it. He could not reach the carrot because he did not believe that he had it. If he believed he had it, he would find a way to get it off of his head, instead of chasing it. Faith is the step to remove the carrot from the head and place it in the hand. The carrot is ours and it is on our heads. We simply have to take it.

We just see the carrot as what we want as what we wish for and desire. When we have faith, we realize that the carrot is ours and we stop following it and just take it. But if it were not attached to our heads, if it were not in front of our eyes, in other words within our, “bag of haves”, we could not think to desire or want it.So it is helpful to say that if we can visualize what we want and believe it, then it is truly already ours, it is in fact attached to our heads; now it is just a matter of getting to it. When we are capable of visualizing a thing, a goal, or a relationship so totally that we can feel it and believe it, that is not the work of our imagination, it is simply piercing the veil into the truth of what is really ours. When we are taught that the appropriate prayer for receiving what we want is a prayer of thanks for having it already, it is truly appropriate. The reason being that we do actually have it already. “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours…” (Mark 11:24)

Understanding this does not change the fact that it is in front of us and not in our hands. We must still do the work of reaching for it whatever that may entail. The difference is that if we know that it is actually ours and there is a way that it can be reached, we can remove our confusion, and our doubt. We may simply focus on getting it. This still requires faith. If I know that the thing that I desire is behind one of the doors before me, I will get it.

We are here to learn lessons, to grow, to perfect our souls. This is done through our experiences here on earth. We all have our own destiny, our own path along which lies our personal lessons and our, “haves”. In order to reach each of our “haves” we must pass through different experiences, and in order to hold onto our, “haves” we must again go through lesson.

An infant has a burning desire, an obsession to raise its head. It is not really a goal from our point of view; it is a step toward standing and walking. It is simply a step in the path of development for a human being. However to that infant it is the end product. That infant cannot focus on anything else until it reaches that goal. Then it moves to the goal of turning over. Well, we do not spend our entire lives rolling over, even though while striving for that goal, to the infant, it is complete in itself.

We can only see the horizon and consider reaching it as our goal. However, each horizon turns into another. Each horizon takes us closer to God. When we finally reach the horizon, we are there. This is also how it works with our “haves”. The stronger the desire is that one has, the more one is connected to that, “innate knowing”. There really is no such thing as a desire. A desire is really the veil that covers one’s destiny. We cannot desire what is not ours, just as the donkey could not desire the carrot if it were not visible in front of it’s face twenty four hours a day.

I am not referring to the desire that comes from envy, or from wanting what someone else has. That is not a desire for the thing in itself it is a desire for the feeling that the other person exhibits from having whatever it is. If I know that what I want is definitely in front of me; that it is definitely behind one of the doors that I am facing, even though I must still find which door and face what ever challenges lie before me, I know that it is mine. The difference is that I will reach it because I know that it will be there whenever and however I get there. Most of all I know that I will get there.

When we are clear and able to focus on the journey and the process and are not confused by doubt or fear then we are able to listen and accept the guidance that is constantly given to us on our path to attainment. We can learn our lessons as we travel because we are awake to our journey and not lost in fear.

It is important to understand that the lesson, is the process and the process contains the journey, the journeyer and the destination.